Reflections from the Rust community on how they communicate
One of the top contributors for Rust did a four-year retrospective and the first section of his post is about how the Rust community went from mailing list to Recourse and why: http://words.steveklabnik.com/four-years-with-rust#rustdev_2. I'm pointing this out while Stephen regrows some ribs because I think it articulates why Donald and I lean towards the Discourse solution for our communication channels.
Interesting. I wish we could do similar things for python-ideas and python-dev (and any other lists we still have like core-mentorship, but probably not python-committers). But I expect that our core community is still skewed more towards mailing lists than Rust's (which went public in 2010). Hm... Maybe we could start by doing this for core-mentorship? I imagine most beneficiaries there are more proficient in social websites than in email, and there are probably some other easy wins (like being able to refer people more easily to similar threads in the past). Of course it would only work if the people providing the mentorship are interested in switching, but that's a smaller group than the list of folks affected by changes in python-dev or python-ideas. One thing sounded a little ironic in the linked blog though: switching to a non-mailing-list forum doesn't mean we're getting less mail -- personally I still need the emails to remind me that something was posted somewhere. But it does mean it's easier to turn mail off when you don't want it, since there are other ways to catch up, and it also feels more legit to just not read a forum for a while when you're on vacation -- personally, at least, I feel less moral pressure to catch up completely when it's just notifications from a forum or tracker, since I can always just check the site looking for recent open issues/threads. And for some sites I have a strict policy to *delete* such email notifications once I've read (or ignored) them, rather than attempting to keep a complete archive of the list as part of my inbox. --Guido On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 4:17 PM, Brett Cannon <brett@python.org> wrote:
One of the top contributors for Rust did a four-year retrospective and the first section of his post is about how the Rust community went from mailing list to Recourse and why: http://words.steveklabnik.com/ four-years-with-rust#rustdev_2. I'm pointing this out while Stephen regrows some ribs because I think it articulates why Donald and I lean towards the Discourse solution for our communication channels.
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-- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
One note, if we decide to use discourse I'll need to spend a bit of time making the deployment less janky. I went with quick and easy rather than good when making deployment choices. Sent from my iPhone
On Dec 23, 2016, at 3:27 PM, Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> wrote:
Interesting. I wish we could do similar things for python-ideas and python-dev (and any other lists we still have like core-mentorship, but probably not python-committers). But I expect that our core community is still skewed more towards mailing lists than Rust's (which went public in 2010).
Hm... Maybe we could start by doing this for core-mentorship? I imagine most beneficiaries there are more proficient in social websites than in email, and there are probably some other easy wins (like being able to refer people more easily to similar threads in the past). Of course it would only work if the people providing the mentorship are interested in switching, but that's a smaller group than the list of folks affected by changes in python-dev or python-ideas.
One thing sounded a little ironic in the linked blog though: switching to a non-mailing-list forum doesn't mean we're getting less mail -- personally I still need the emails to remind me that something was posted somewhere. But it does mean it's easier to turn mail off when you don't want it, since there are other ways to catch up, and it also feels more legit to just not read a forum for a while when you're on vacation -- personally, at least, I feel less moral pressure to catch up completely when it's just notifications from a forum or tracker, since I can always just check the site looking for recent open issues/threads. And for some sites I have a strict policy to *delete* such email notifications once I've read (or ignored) them, rather than attempting to keep a complete archive of the list as part of my inbox.
--Guido
On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 4:17 PM, Brett Cannon <brett@python.org> wrote: One of the top contributors for Rust did a four-year retrospective and the first section of his post is about how the Rust community went from mailing list to Recourse and why: http://words.steveklabnik.com/four-years-with-rust#rustdev_2. I'm pointing this out while Stephen regrows some ribs because I think it articulates why Donald and I lean towards the Discourse solution for our communication channels.
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-- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido) _______________________________________________ Overload-sig mailing list overload-sig@python.org Options: https://mail.python.org/mm3/mailman3/accounts/list-options/overload-sig.pyth... Archives: https://mail.python.org/mm3/archives/list/overload-sig@python.org/
On Dec 23, 2016, at 12:27 PM, Guido van Rossum wrote:
One thing sounded a little ironic in the linked blog though: switching to a non-mailing-list forum doesn't mean we're getting less mail -- personally I still need the emails to remind me that something was posted somewhere. But it does mean it's easier to turn mail off when you don't want it, since there are other ways to catch up, and it also feels more legit to just not read a forum for a while when you're on vacation -- personally, at least, I feel less moral pressure to catch up completely when it's just notifications from a forum or tracker, since I can always just check the site looking for recent open issues/threads.
FWIW, this is why I read most of the mailing lists on Gmane. Less inbox clutter, easy to kill or ignore threads, very easy to catch up after a long absence. And because it integrates well with email, I can use my normal non-browser tools to jump back into a thread when necessary. But as I think we've explored before, there's probably a fundamental difference roughly cut along the lines of Gmail users and non-Gmail (or other webmail) users. Cheers, -Barry
On Fri, 23 Dec 2016 at 12:28 Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> wrote:
Interesting. I wish we could do similar things for python-ideas and python-dev (and any other lists we still have like core-mentorship, but probably not python-committers). But I expect that our core community is still skewed more towards mailing lists than Rust's (which went public in 2010).
Those lists are too big to start, but maybe eventually if we decide to go down this road.
Hm... Maybe we could start by doing this for core-mentorship? I imagine most beneficiaries there are more proficient in social websites than in email, and there are probably some other easy wins (like being able to refer people more easily to similar threads in the past). Of course it would only work if the people providing the mentorship are interested in switching, but that's a smaller group than the list of folks affected by changes in python-dev or python-ideas.
We had also discussed converting distutils-sig to start as an experiment.
One thing sounded a little ironic in the linked blog though: switching to a non-mailing-list forum doesn't mean we're getting less mail -- personally I still need the emails to remind me that something was posted somewhere. But it does mean it's easier to turn mail off when you don't want it, since there are other ways to catch up, and it also feels more legit to just not read a forum for a while when you're on vacation -- personally, at least, I feel less moral pressure to catch up completely when it's just notifications from a forum or tracker, since I can always just check the site looking for recent open issues/threads. And for some sites I have a strict policy to *delete* such email notifications once I've read (or ignored) them, rather than attempting to keep a complete archive of the list as part of my inbox.
I agree with the ability to ignore notification emails versus actual emails while on vacation. During my month off I had to go in and manually archive all emails coming from mailing lists to stay offline, but luckily I already had the Gmail labels set up for that so it wasn't too arduous. But had I received notification/summary emails from a site I could just delete them knowing that the site was keeping track of what I was missing. E.g. staying off of GitHub is easy as you simply don't visit the website, while checking personal email is much harder to avoid. -Brett
--Guido
On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 4:17 PM, Brett Cannon <brett@python.org> wrote:
One of the top contributors for Rust did a four-year retrospective and the first section of his post is about how the Rust community went from mailing list to Recourse and why: http://words.steveklabnik.com/four-years-with-rust#rustdev_2. I'm pointing this out while Stephen regrows some ribs because I think it articulates why Donald and I lean towards the Discourse solution for our communication channels.
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-- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido) _______________________________________________ Overload-sig mailing list overload-sig@python.org Options: https://mail.python.org/mm3/mailman3/accounts/list-options/overload-sig.pyth... Archives: https://mail.python.org/mm3/archives/list/overload-sig@python.org/
Brett Cannon writes:
http://words.steveklabnik.com/four-years-with-rust#rustdev_2.
Thanks for the url! I think the specific filters he mentioned (cooling-off, greylisting obstreperous users, that kind of thing) can be implemented easily enough in Mailman 3 (or Mailman 2, for that matter) with Handlers[1]. The Postorius configuration interface is harder.
I'm pointing this out while Stephen regrows some ribs
Getting better, and it is the holidays, so I'll have some time for this.
because I think it articulates why Donald and I lean towards the Discourse solution for our communication channels.
The big difference between Mailman's potential and the existing features of Discourse is that Mailman doesn't have a sophisticated reputation mechanism that would allow "everybody" to help curate the lists. I don't actually believe that Discourse has one either[2] :-) but that doesn't really matter if you all believe in it. Footnotes: [1] @barry: includes Rules. [2] Well, it does, named "Jeff Atwood".
I honestly don't need a reputation system, I just want information that Discourse or HyperKitty already knows about muted threads or people to be public knowledge and let people derive their own opinion. I don't need some magical number that rates me on a scale of 1-100 or something or have some badge, I just want it to be known that N people have blocked me or that this thread has been muted by N people so I know coming in that I'm regarded as a bad actor to ignore or that a thread is not being widely followed anymore and people consider closed. HyperKitty does have +1/-1 per email which is nice, but I don't see a way to mute a thread or a way to block a whole user. I can obviously do all of this in my email client through filters and muting threads, but there's no way for that information to propagate up unless I personally reply to say "I've walked away" which doesn't seem useful unless you're Guido and I'm sure that's tedious for him to do. Discourse does have thread muting, but doesn't seem to expose the count (I assume that's not terribly difficult to implement). They also don't have user muting/blocking at a per-person level, just at the admin level. I don't know if culturally we will ever get to the point where we're a bit more active in trying to set people straight when they misbehave or are just wasting people's time with things that aren't useful which is why I even ask about this per-person muting (which I currently have set up for 2 people who just never seem to contribute to a conversation in a way I care about even after being told by others they aren't contributing anything useful).
Brett Cannon writes:
I honestly don't need a reputation system, I just want information that Discourse or HyperKitty already knows about muted threads or people to be public knowledge and let people derive their own opinion.
Thanks, that's helpful for me to understand!
propagate up unless I personally reply to say "I've walked away" which doesn't seem useful unless you're Guido
Oh, that would both be noticable to me and affect my behavior if you (or Nick, or Barry, or several others, including some like Tim P who are now almost mythical) did it. There are also some senior developers who I respect as developers and as human beings but who aren't as long-suffering where I might notice but not care. I'm not sure that as a third party I would care as much about mere numbers as even one or two of the above-mentioned getting disgusted.
and I'm sure that's tedious for him to do.
Not just him, and that's why this is a non-starter in practice.
Discourse does have thread muting, but doesn't seem to expose the count (I assume that's not terribly difficult to implement). They also don't have user muting/blocking at a per-person level, just at the admin level. I don't know if culturally we will ever get to the point where we're a bit more active in trying to set people straight when they misbehave
I've worked with several people I considered annoying, unpleasant, and even outright bad actors, with no effect. I'm not sure what you mean by "actively set people straight", but such off-list discussions are thankless work (well, from the people you're trying to help; unfortunately thanks from moderators are not really sufficient to overcome the head-banging-wall feeling). And I know I'm not the only one (I know you do, and Nick has said that he does). So I'm not really sure what you mean by "culture", here.
or are just wasting people's time with things that aren't useful which is why I even ask about this per-person muting (which I currently have set up
I think there's an interesting idea here in making the number of times you and/or a thread you participate in have been muted available to you, only. That way it's not a public censuring, but it does provide information about how you're viewed.
On Mon, 9 Jan 2017 at 23:35 Stephen J. Turnbull < turnbull.stephen.fw@u.tsukuba.ac.jp> wrote:
Brett Cannon writes:
I honestly don't need a reputation system, I just want information that Discourse or HyperKitty already knows about muted threads or people to be public knowledge and let people derive their own opinion.
Thanks, that's helpful for me to understand!
propagate up unless I personally reply to say "I've walked away" which doesn't seem useful unless you're Guido
Oh, that would both be noticable to me and affect my behavior if you (or Nick, or Barry, or several others, including some like Tim P who are now almost mythical) did it.
There are also some senior developers who I respect as developers and as human beings but who aren't as long-suffering where I might notice but not care. I'm not sure that as a third party I would care as much about mere numbers as even one or two of the above-mentioned getting disgusted.
So I don't consider this kind of scenario for someone to realize *they *are behaving in a way that others don't like, but to help provide a signal to new people that *someone else* is not behaving in a way that the general community finds constructive. IOW it's not for self-improvement but for others to know who the community has flagged as okay to ignore (although if it does manage to help people improve their own behaviour that's great, I've just come to view the chances of that occurring rather low).
and I'm sure that's tedious for him to do.
Not just him, and that's why this is a non-starter in practice.
Yep, and that's why I don't actively make a similar statement.
Discourse does have thread muting, but doesn't seem to expose the count (I assume that's not terribly difficult to implement). They also don't have user muting/blocking at a per-person level, just at the admin level. I don't know if culturally we will ever get to the point where we're a bit more active in trying to set people straight when they misbehave
I've worked with several people I considered annoying, unpleasant, and even outright bad actors, with no effect. I'm not sure what you mean by "actively set people straight", but such off-list discussions are thankless work (well, from the people you're trying to help; unfortunately thanks from moderators are not really sufficient to overcome the head-banging-wall feeling). And I know I'm not the only one (I know you do, and Nick has said that he does). So I'm not really sure what you mean by "culture", here.
Yep, off-list attempts to help people with their communication skills seem to never work out. What I mean by "actively trying to set people straight" is more "aggressive" than off-list prodding. I'm thinking like publicly telling people they are not acting appropriately or more actively warning people that their contributions are not useful and if they don't improve they will be asked to leave. Neither of these things typically happen (the former does on occasion, but usually only when both people have lost their composure). IOW the Python community worries a lot about offending others, so we tend not to speak up about others or ask people to leave until they have already grown way past being just a nuisance.
or are just wasting people's time with things that aren't useful which is why I even ask about this per-person muting (which I currently have set up
I think there's an interesting idea here in making the number of times you and/or a thread you participate in have been muted available to you, only. That way it's not a public censuring, but it does provide information about how you're viewed.
It's possible that it might help. I know when I have talked to people privately about how they have behaved I have been told that it's just my opinion (I have refrained from using the dictatorial reply of being the list admin means my opinion matters more than you're admitting), so having it more in people's face that they are viewed by others as not contributing may help. One key point in that idea, though, is there's a difference in participating in a discussion up to the point that a conclusion is reached, and then contributing beyond that point. So participating passed the end of the thread is where that signal should come from. After that it's whether your post was found useful (which is different than voting for an idea), and that's at the individual email/post level.
participants (5)
-
Barry Warsaw -
Brett Cannon -
Donald Stufft -
Guido van Rossum -
Stephen J. Turnbull